An unnamed computer virus infection forced a UK hospital to temporarily shut down part of its network earlier this week.
An unspecified number of computers at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge were hit by the malware. A spokesman explained that the hospital continued to operate normally while IT staff grappled with the infection …

COMMENTS

no impact on patients?

I guess not signficantly affected - but we were told that our final test results would have to be posted in a few days and the result we were being given might vary by a day or so [not a result where this matters]

patients not affected?

Related issue?

Don't know if it's related or not but I also work in another hospital on IT support and we have recently had a call about visitors to a healthcare website Healthcare Innovation Expo who were being infected with malware, possibly due to the site being hijacked. Luckily the security systems here blocked it before it spread to other machines.

Doctor's Offices

Whenever I'm in a doctor's office or some other medical facility, I'm now in the habit of looking at their information technology. This usually results in my dwelling more on their lack of security than my case of the flu, re injured knee, or whatever brought me there.

My last visit left me alone in a room for about half an hour with a WinXP machine hanging from a wall. Later, when someone arrived to use it, I was quite distracted while talking with her as I kept thinking how easily one could compromise the records of everyone associated with their practice.